


I Corinthians 13

by athousandwinds



Category: Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
Genre: M/M, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-21
Updated: 2011-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-14 22:40:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/pseuds/athousandwinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard and Alec are not exactly what you'd call ideal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Corinthians 13

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oshun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oshun/gifts).



> Many thanks to hhertzof, who saved my bacon in the formatting department.

**i. love suffereth long, and is kind**

This is love.

It is not patient, it is not kind. Instead, it rips Alec apart. Because he will follow Richard anywhere, to any place, to thieves' dens and palaces of the great and - ha - good. The only problem is that Richard doesn't seem to want to go anywhere. Hence: Alec stagnates.

Alec is an impatient man.

  


 **ii. love envieth not**

This is love.

Richard dislikes the idea of Alec having other lovers. It's not jealousy. Richard simply feels that Alec should not be touched by people who don't know him, who don't know to handle him with care. And you don't know Alec unless you've seen him retching into the snow, unless you've held his hair back from his vomit and whispered something soothing and unintelligible.

It's not that Richard's possessive, even. He's merely protective. Alec tells him about Flavia's golden equations, her brilliant sarcasm and Richard only hopes that Flavia will entice him away from drugs and bitemarks with the promise of unopened books and the seductive scent of old paper.

Besides, there's nothing to be jealous of. Alec sometimes tries to pretend there is, but he can't lie to Richard's face and expect to be believed.

  


 **iii. love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up**

This is love.

Richard rests his folded arms on the back of Alec's chair and leans forward to study the dice game. Alec tenses, then consciously relaxes into Richard's warmth. Neither of them have their backs to the door.

Alec smirks at the shark. Alec would smirk at _any_ shark. "Do you honestly think I don't know when the dice are loaded?"

Richard passes his left hand over Alec's hair in an affectionate, even proprietary gesture. With his right hand, he draws his sword. Everyone at Rosalie's knows what happens when Alec picks a fight. No declarations necessary.

  


 **iv. doth not behave itself unseemly**

This is love.

Sometimes, when Alec is in the midst of enthusiastically writhing bodies, when in the throes of something akin to ecstasy (and of something akin to agony), he calls out, _Richard, can you see me like this?_ and then it becomes _see me like this_ becomes _see me_. Only not really, of course, because that would give his unfortunate toys the wrong impression. That is to say, it would give them an impression at all.

Alec knows what people say about him. He's discussed with Flavia the possibility of caring less; they decided it wasn't feasible. But he does care what they say about Richard, not least because the words "Highcombe" and "blind" and "easy target" might come up.

So he keeps them talking about himself. It's safer for all concerned.

  


 **v. seeketh not her own**

This is love.

Alec is not a natural breadwinner. Alec is the worst dice-player Richard knows, partly because he has abominable luck and partly because not even the stupidest shark will play with him now. Alec's main function is to be decorative, his secondary function is to read letters, and for this he takes and takes and takes from Richard.

Richard gives it to him. It's a small price for the pleasure of Alec's company.

  


 **vi. is not easily provoked**

This is love.

"Why do you think I'm here?" Alec's hair is almost red in the candlelight. Richard carefully moves the burning wick out of his long reach. Alec uses his hands to talk, whippet-quick and dramatic, and it's dangerous for all concerned in a small room. "Do you think I spend my time covered in horse shit and bad beer for fun? Do you think I don't hate that idiot Hugo, who should have been drowned at birth? Do you think I wouldn't pick a fight with Ginny if you _did_ kill women?"

He's drunk. It's not unusual. Alec's face is flushed, some life under his pale skin. Richard puts his chin on his palm and watches him.

"Damn you," Alec says, his voice slurred invitingly. He sounds angry, still. "Why don't you _react_?"

He raises his hand and then stops himself almost violently. Richard wonders if it was something in his face.

"Come here," he says. Alec obeys.

  


 **vii. thinketh no evil**

This is love.

"You killed him," Alec whispers into Richard's ear. "How?"

Richard presses against him. It's winter, and even with the fire blazing in the grate Alec's body is freezing. Richard puts an arm round his waist and pulls him closer, murmuring in Alec's ear. He can see the blue veins in Alec's wrists.

Alec shivers, but not with cold, because Richard's fingers are stroking down his thigh. His head falls back against the threadbare pillow. "Excellent..."

Richard is (of course) a graceful fighter, winner and (only with Alec) loser. He allows Alec to roll him on his back and kiss him, excited at the mention of blood and the cry of pain that could be the last gasp of orgasm. Sex and death. Alec would think there was something wrong with him, if he could think at all through the fog of drugs, misery and Richard.

Richard, for his part, has no intention of telling Alec he was just there when Johnnie Smalls was killed by someone else.

  


 **viii. rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth**

This is love.

"What did you think I was, before?"

Alec asks questions into Richard's body. Sometimes Richard can feel him tracing letters over his skin, which might be numbers, pictograms, magic symbols for all he knows. He thinks Alec would tell him, if it were magic. He would want Richard to know how clever he'd been.

"I thought you were Alec," he said. He feels, rather than hears, Alec's huff against the cooling sweat on his chest.

"What did you think I _was_ , Richard," he says. "The man with one name? No family to speak of, no past, just appeared one day out of the blue."

Richard is silent. It's not the sort of thing you ask in Riverside.

"Did you think I was a student who'd gambled away his tuition?"

Richard touches Alec's hair, sticky and matted with effort. He doesn't mind it, and buries his fingers in its thickness. He feels Alec wince against him, but for once he doesn't complain; he's too intent on finding out what he imagines Richard has romanced about him.

"Did you think I was a foreign prince fallen on hard times?" Alec's voice is sardonic now. How he manages it with his face stuck to Richard's belly, Richard doesn't know. But he lets Alec hear him laugh, all the same.

"And what do you think now you know you're fucking Lord David Alexander Tielman Campion?" Alec asks. This is what he's really wanted to know, of course, so Richard releases his hair and smoothes his thumb over Alec's cheek.

"I think you're Alec," he says.

  


 **ix. beareth all things**

This is love.

Unbeknownst to, well, anyone, Alec does occasionally deign to worry after the greatest swordsman in the world. Worry is rather overstating the case, of course. Every so often he wakes alone in the bed, and for a moment he can't quite remember where Richard is. In a small percentage of those cases, he does remember where Richard is, and becomes annoyed that he hasn't yet returned. Every minute Alec lies shivering under the covers is another minute he'll snap at Richard for when Richard brings home the money from his fight. It's not unreasonable, and Richard rarely takes it badly.

Worst are the times when, by accident or by Richard's own design, he has allowed his opponent through his guard and comes home with a red slash across his wrist. It means Alec must contemplate the possibility of there being someone who can best Richard at all, and that is intolerable.

  


 **x. believeth all things**

This is love.

When he discovers Richard's blindness, Alec merely stands up and goes over to him. He presses his hands down on to Richard's shoulders, his grip firm and tight. He is pretending to offer support; the truth is that Richard is supporting him. "I will find a cure," he says.

"I can live with it," Richard says quietly, as he does everything quietly.

Alec nods, even if Richard can only vaguely see his outline against the candlelight. Then he sits down and writes to Doctor Foster anyway.

  


 **xi. hopeth all things**

This is love.

"I knew things would end up this way," Alec says in the carriage on the way to the docks. Kyros awaits.

"No, you didn't," says Richard, smiling because he knows Alec is smiling.

  


 **xii. endureth all things**

This is the one they're good at.


End file.
